Patriots notebook: Ravens could offer challenge similar to Eagles

Bill Belichick believes his team may be looking at instant replay next Monday night against Baltimore.

Glen Farley

Bill Belichick believes his team may be looking at instant replay next Monday night against Baltimore.

The New England Patriots head coach feels his team’s next opponent bears a resemblance to the club his squad struggled to defeat at Gillette Stadium on Sunday night.

“We’re looking at another team kind of similar to the Eagles in Baltimore, with a physical team, a team that’s got a lot of veteran players, (a team) that knows how to play, knows how to win (and has) been in a lot of tough situations,” Belichick said Monday.

After compiling an average margin of victory of 25.4 points through their first 10 games, the Patriots needed Tom Brady to direct a 69-yard touchdown drive Asante Samuel to intercept an A.J. Feeley pass in the end zone later in the fourth quarter to escape with a 31-28 win over Philadelphia.

“They made some plays,” Belichick said. “We made a few more than they did, but they made some plays, they made plenty of them.

“They did an excellent job of having their team ready to go and they were doing things on both sides of the ball that were very competitive and difficult at times for us.”

Asked if he felt the 5-6 Eagles had devised a blueprint for beating his undefeated team that others around the NFL might attempt to copy, Belichick responded: “I don’t know. You’d have to talk to them.”

But defensive end Ty Warren, for one, admitted he expects to see teams attempt to re-enact what the Eagles did.

“We’re not expecting to go out there and have a blowout every week,” Warren said. “We know that this is the National Football League and it’s a copycat league and a lot of things that Philly did good this past week, a lot of teams will now take that and try to take their own scheme or way to execute something similar to that.

“We’ve just got to be prepared for it and make sure the mistakes that we did make – and there’s always going to be mistakes because every team presents different problems – but we’ve just to make sure that when we’re going out to prepare these teams we’re not making the same mistakes we made in previous games because they can show up again.”

In the Ravens team they’ll see at M&T Bank Stadium on Monday night, the Patriots will face a 4-7 club that is mired in a franchise-record five-game losing streak, three of those setbacks coming by double digits including the 32-14 beating they absorbed at San Diego on Sunday.

“Records don’t mean anything,” Belichick insisted. “The only thing that matters on Monday night is how well they play and how well we play. That will determine who wins that game, not who won last week’s game or the week’s before or what anybody’s records were.

“If you want to go back to the Miami game from ’04, we were 12-1, they were 2-11,” Belichick said, referring to the Patriots’ stunning 29-28 Monday night loss at Dolphin Stadium. “Records don’t mean anything. The only thing that matters is how you play and coach.”

Brady on ice

Following a 10-minute conversation with the coach at his locker stall, Brady exited the Patriots locker room Monday afternoon with a protective sleeve covering an ice pack on his left elbow.

A top corner

Belichick offered a one-word response when asked if he considered Samuel an elite cornerback.

“Absolutely,” the coach said.

Samuel intercepted Feeley twice Sunday night, returning the first 40 yards for a touchdown early in the game and picking off the pass in the end zone to preserve the win late.

Decision coming down

The Patriots must reach a decision regarding the future of Troy Brown today.

The team must either activate the 36-year-old wide receiver, who is on the physically unable to perform list with a knee injury, or place him on injured reserve for the season.

People were watching

The Patriots-Eagles game earned “NBC Sunday Night Football” a 15.6 overnight rating and a 24 share, tops on the NFL’s premier prime-time package since Nov. 28, 2005, when a 26-7 Indianapolis Colts win over the Pittsburgh Steelers registered numbers of 15.8 and 24 the last season “Monday Night Football” was on ABC.